Remember the 9-year-old kid who wrote a how to pick-up chicks guide that was just so gosh-darn adorable it was optioned to make a movie called The Ballad Of Doogie Bowser, Kid Pick-Up Artist: Kids Say The Sleaziest Things (working title)? Well, now he's 10 and hoping to get his fourth book (How To Talk To Santa, last in a line that includes How To Talk To Girls, How To Talk To Moms, and How To Talk To Dads) published before puberty hits and "precocious" gives way to "obnoxious." Unfortunately, according to this article in USA Today, it's way too late:
So who's the second-smartest kid in his class?
"I am." [10-year-old author Alec Greven says]
His mother, Erin Greven, bursts into laughter and exclaims, "Alec!"
"Really," he says. "I'm not bragging. But I'm nothing like Reagan. He knows so much stuff."
Don't laugh, mom. You're only encouraging him. One day, probably next year, he'll be spitballing some adorable truisms for his forthcoming book, How To Talk To Lamps—you know, just bouncing ideas off of whatever furniture happens to be around—and he'll say, "Lamps don't like being left on all the time." He'll flash his most impish smile, and pause for the requisite cascade of How-Cute! laughter. But this time no laughter will come. Instead Alec will be left standing in the cruel silence with his blue five-star notebook and dozens of Crayola markers scattered at his feet (what he calls his "office supplies") and for the first time he'll feel the icy indifference of the world at large.
Of course, it's not Alec's fault he's become the very annoying face of precocious publishing. It's the fault of every adult around him:
He'd rather discuss books than TV or video games, but can be mischievous. On a tour of his home, [Alec] points out a bar in the living room, "where Dad makes mojitos." Eric Greven later says: "I've done that a few times. Alec has a remarkable memory."